Re: Loopholes in Religion
Yes. But sirjee, you diplomatically avoided the question. Which was - did you just find a loophole in Hinduism? Since prolonged meditation, per your view, is counter productive.
Extending that train of thought, what is the cutoff daily worship duration beyond which ROI starts going southie?
Re: Loopholes in Religion
southie. there are many benefits and joys or workout. A big beautiful discipline.
But I can not tell people its replacement of islam.
So mediation is good… but you have to think for your self if its oppose to your teachings.
Also be mindful many religions were bent out of shape by very pious and sufi like people.
Re: Loopholes in Religion
Great replies everyone 
Re: Loopholes in Religion
Mr. Monk
With OP’S permission, can you please elaborate on religions being bent of shape by sufi like people?
Re: Loopholes in Religion
My post was sarcastic. -____-
Re: Loopholes in Religion
Since this is not a religion thread and it has been given in science and nature - my response is as follows:
It is a reality that the majority of human interactions, actions and decisions are done on assumption or trust. Many times these actions pay off … so each time they confirm to us the validity of them through the process of confirmation. That level of confirmation need only be subjective to qualify.
The mind is an interesting thing … We can teach ourselves to overcome pain without the need of uttering blasphemous statements. The point however is that we put trust in to such things to misdirect ourselves from our own sense of rationality - That is if we choose to indulge.
Neuro-Linguistic-Programming (NLP) is a science of using words to create concepts and understandings that can affect values and beliefs … Music can alter emotion and lighting can be used to betray our vision. Combined these fall neatly into the domain of magic and illusion.
So what is the difference between putting faith in to a soothsayer or into a prophet?
The difference is interpretation. A prophet will provide interpretation to exact the outcome a soothsayer will rely on your own mind to convince itself of his words. It is the innate human ability to make pictures in the clouds … Or provide structure from randomness … We do it when we name things and we are not comfortable with once having distinguished something for it not to be named. These are the deep cogs in our psyche that are used for propaganda, entertainment, and other forms of control on others … although they can be used for healing and unwinding potential toxic thoughts as well.
Professing to the Islamic faith I can vouch that there is no superstition in it - in the sense described above … we are not people who play dice to predict outcomes, we do not use the alignment of stars to make vague statements of happenings in our lives … yet we believe in certain things that have no scientific evidence. The reason for these beliefs is because they come from scripture.
As Muslims we are not allowed to believe in anything that is not substantiated … Unlike modern science which places the highest criterion of evidence as that what is testable and objective - we merely class that as second in rank for all those things that CAN be tested and objective MUST be tested and objectively seen before acceptance. For all other things that cannot possibly be tested fairly we must rely on TEXT - authenticated - i.e. although we might not be able to test the subject matter of The Evil Eye - we can test how authentic the narration of Evil Eye are … and they are quite authentic …
The other major difference is - in the case of superstitions we can easily paint a picture in our minds of the outcome manifesting - however in the case of beliefs of the unseen … We merely say - you guess is as good as mine … we have no idea on how to visualise such things - but we accept them … so the fabric of a belief in the unseen is quite different from a superstition … Again a superstition is really a sophisticated mechanism of duping ourselves in to believing our own made up ideas …
Similar to the game the romantic person plays with a flower … pulling the petals out one at a time he convinces himself of the conclusion through his own made up game … “She Loves Me … She Loves Me Not … etc” As you can see the game is about chance and we use chance in a way as though it will relate to us our fate … which if we think about it - is really quite the opposite … If a coin is flipped and the outcome is used as a SIGN of our own fate then the chances of our fate conforming to the intent we held in the coin toss is independent - half the time it will conform and half the time it will not …
That is the safeguard … Jinn are also spoken about … and we are warned that they will mix truth with lies … perhaps they too have found a mechanism of predicting outcomes but they tell us as though they are happening or going to happen not that what they found is merely one possible path of the trajectory of the action that is about to be taken.
Our criteria for choice should not be based on an astrological determination … but out of what is good and bad better or worse on the situation at hand. And we should not even bother looking at the zodiac for guidance. The guidance is already there - in the TEXT … The pillars, the adab, the rules of courtesy and conduct.
Re: Loopholes in Religion
Sorry, my mistake.
Re: Loopholes in Religion
Peace MangoMan
Please raise these points in Religion and Philosophy … InshaAllah they are worth pondering over and expounding in the philosophical sense.
Re: Loopholes in Religion
I take it OP withheld permission? Mean OP.
Re: Loopholes in Religion
Points raised in this thread need to be responded to in here . Stop mulling over the forum
Re: Loopholes in Religion
The mere fact that we call it ‘faith’ and not ‘fact’, ‘observation’ or ‘law’ means that it is something beyond scientific scrutiny.
Re: Loopholes in Religion
Aren’t kakaballi and iamright saying the same thing?
Re: Loopholes in Religion
Yes, that is science.
If you said yesterday that I know kakaballi would say the same thing tomorrow, that would be faith. 
Re: Loopholes in Religion
Bohot khoob.
Re: Loopholes in Religion
oh this discussion is still based on the points raised in the first few posts. think about that. 3-4 points…and 90+ posts. lots of loopholes.
there’s a lot more to come…but it still won’t make sense to you
Re: Loopholes in Religion
The esteemed Mr. Monk lobbed a few loopholes towards Hinduism - specifically wrt meditation for prolonged periods spanning tens of thousands of years. But for OP’S intervention, he would have explained his lobs.
By the way, OP, what is your agenda? What is the point of this thread?
Re: Loopholes in Religion
A loophole is an evident weakness in the wording of a law or instruction that people can exploit to evade the intent of that law or instruction.
Black magic and the Evil eye are acts where their effects cannot be measured objectively so the criticism is that the claim of them being real cannot be falsified and hence is a matter of convenience?
That is sort of true. However, this may be a result of an unrealistic expectation of “Unseen” held by the critics – The Unseen world is so because it cannot be “measured” - so the whole argument is now not about what can or cannot be measured; but what is trusted upon resulting from third person testimony.
So there is a philosophical position that states Reality is more than what we can fathom with our senses and intellect whereas the other position is Reality is only limited to the extent of our mutual fathoming of things. Which of these two is the arrogant position?
Furthermore, when looking closer the second definition of Reality is deficient, because our extent of fathoming changes and improves – our techniques become better at learning new things. So it could be that things like Black Magic and Evil Eye are true but we merely have not developed the technology to fathom that yet. Reality in the latter case changes whereas Reality in the faith based definition does not change. The idea of Reality demands it to be defined as something manifest not as a moving target – so for this reason I would say philosophically the concepts of Seen and Unseen as co-existing elements nested under the heading of Reality is a superior concept.
Is this a loophole? Not really – but one man’s loophole is another man’s reason.
Similarly, the question of reality of religion and argument against it is that since it is so varied it suggests no objective reality as real things are undeniable; the claim is anything that is denied upon is unreal. Gravity is posed as an example as being testable and objective. However, this has been answered above, but to further clarify – it is not always the case that real things are agreed. A blind man may not see the undressed woman in front of him, but it does not belie the fact that she is naked. If the tools to assess Reality themselves are in question then we revert back to the basis above – that some things remain in the Unseen, either permanently or until a point until we have to ability to see them.
Is this a loophole? Not really – but one man’s loophole is another man’s reason.
A question is posed about “God Who Created human beings so that they could worship Him” to then lead on the question of “why” and “what God receives from this. In Islam we have our understandings about Allah (SWT) from scripture so we cannot make things up. His Attributes are sufficient to cater for all possible and feasible lines of questioning. Some lines of questioning are absurd because they force logical fallacies to be entertained. So as long as the question leads to somewhere sound there is an answer to it – as far as I have found within the Islamic scriptures themselves.
First of all – We can ask the question “why would God?” but we should ask ourselves first – “why would we need to know the motives of God?” That is a hard question to answer. There is no reason to know why God does anything; merely we need to know what our expectation is from God. By asking the question “why would God …” we are making the assumption that we will understand the motives of God. Since we cannot make that assumption when we do it can cause us to become distant from the original intent. Distant meaning – our faculties may find a reason to move away from our duty to God based on being unable to fathom His motives – which would be a fallacious reason to do so. There is actually a straight forward answer … What does God receive when we worship Him? The answer is … He receives worship. The question is a tautology. Once having established that God Created us and He deserves our worship then we offer worship. This equation of justice need not be any more complicated than that. Justice is present in our own design – we desire justice and we feel the need to meet that justice by acting in accordance with it. If after establishing that God deserves our worship and we fail to do it we harm our own sense of balance and justice. If we make the tacit arrogation that we can understand the motives of God then already this is an inferior concept of God and contradicts the understood Attributes of God and our relationship to Him – at least from the Islamic point of view.
Is this a loophole? Not really – but one man’s loophole is another man’s reason.
So the query of fairness i.e. justice is again proliferated in the scenario of life being a test from God – The illumined going to Paradise and the failures going to Hell. Then by using another scriptural statement, that God loves us more than 70 mothers, it presents a complication in the minds to understand that dichotomy. The retort being that, it was said that even one mother would not place her child in fire, but she would be forgiving.
Consider then a scenario that she had five such children and one of her children was adamant on killing his siblings, the only way to stop him would be to kill him or maim him, would she not do that despite her love? Again this is another vastly documented area in Islamic theology and that is regarding the Attributes of Allah (SWT) being of two kinds. The Attributes of Beauty and the Attributes of Power, together they form the Eminence of Justice. They are in tension – but not in contradiction. To elaborate – We have a person who commits all the crimes and indulges in all his passions then on the Day he is brought before Allah (SWT)… Now if Allah (SWT) forgives him what sense of justice will there be for the ones who he had harmed and did injustice to? So by requiring Allah (SWT) to conform to our two dimensional view we limit overall Justice. Allah (SWT) has given us all the ability to choose not to worship Him and not even acknowledge His Existence. A thing a mother would do? He Gives such people and all people alike all the pleasures of this life – even those that we take for granted – such as air to breathe and skin to touch. Rather did we even stop to think that God gave us mothers? It is well known that the Retribution of Allah (SWT) is to be viewed in parallel to His Mercy – they are not to be conflated.
Is this a loophole? Not really – but one man’s loophole is another man’s reason.
Can we measure the love of 70 mothers?
The actual reference to seventy mothers is in regards to a bird giving worms to its young, but to be more precise look at the following hadith.
*“The Messenger of Allah was traveling and stopped on the way at a village. A woman was cooking at a fire nearby and he noticed that she constantly had to push her child back who would come forward. She said to the Prophet, “I work with this fire all day, my son wants to play with it but I have to push him back all the time because I’m frightened for him. If Allah loves us more than we love our children, how can He put us in Hell?”
Hearing this the Messenger of Allah sat with his head bowed and his eyes filled with tears. He cried for some time and then said, “Allah does not want to send His creation into Hell, but it is man himself who buys Hell for himself through his disobedience to Allah. He forgets where he has come from and who his Caretaker is. He does not seek forgiveness from his Creator.”*
Is this a loophole? Not really – but one man’s loophole is another man’s reason.
So comes the question of the moon to decide the beginning of Ramadan. So the question is if Ramadan starts on different days for people in different locations…and hence Lailat-ul-Qadr falls on different days…when exactly is any of this happening?
This question is based on ignorance of astronomical phenomena and their references in hadith. A fine waxing crescent sighting should determine the start of the Islamic month. On a global scale sometimes a crescent is not visible either because it has set in that location or because the elongation angle with the sun is not sufficient for that location. When the start of Ramadan has been properly established – then Laylat-ul-Qadr is sought in the last ten days and in some references the odd nights. Either way there will only be 2 neighbouring calendar week days that will separate the whole planet at any one time. If the night is found in any one location then that night will last out for the whole planet eventually. Say in the northern hemisphere summer, like ours is in these days. Australia will quickly reach night, that same night will unfold into Asia, then in to the Middle-East and then to southern Africa first and then later to Europe and Southern Amercia and eventually trail off through North America and come back again through the Pacific to Australia again and again. In fact night and day are constantly being wrapped and unwrapped by each other on an ongoing basis. If Laylat-ul-Qadr starts when the night is over the Middle-East then according to the dating time line Australia will have their Laylat-ul-Qadr on the following night, because they would be in their morning when the Middle-East are experiencing their Laylat-ul-Qadr.
It’s not brain surgery – it’s just a bit of basic astronomy.
So some time within the following 23 hours 56 odd minutes all places on the globe should experience the same – night time.
Is this a loophole? Not really – but one man’s loophole is another man’s reason.
Re: Loopholes in Religion
Then we have raised the argument of this being too complicated - for no reason? Occam’s razor Things should be explained in as simple terms as possible. A matter should be made straightforward but it should not be made simpler than it NEEDS to be. A simple test is to view the alternative. An explanation is better than no explanation unless there is evidence that holds sway against the explanation.
Is this a loophole? Not really – but one man’s loophole is another man’s reason.
A manual comes with warnings and precautions and disclaimers that if certain things are done then no liability will be taken. We accept these clauses for items we buy, but why not with the lives we lead?
Is this a loophole? Not really – but one man’s loophole is another man’s reason.
Regarding the need for updates to prophetic revealed scripture - Why have they stopped? Well the updates only came to rectify the nations when they strayed from the path and nothing was there to bring them back. Today we can be sure that there will always be at least a group of people who will have the truth even if they themselves don’t follow it and we can also be sure that there must be some who do follow it properly. The guidance in the form of the Qur’an is a miracle because it repeatedly shows that it does not become outdated. As our intellects and experiences develop the refraction of the Qur’anic message through the minds displays accordingly. And we need a time when all of this will end too – so no more prophets unfortunately…
Is this a loophole? Not really – but one man’s loophole is another man’s reason.
We need to understand that God does not need us. If we have a limited world view that life is about earning money and taking care of our families and so long as we worship God we will stay healthy, wealthy, trouble free … is just tantamount to making Heaven on Earth. Rather we are told that we are being tested all the time. The rich with their charity the poor with their patience, the onlookers to see their surroundings as signs for change and improvement and the ones who were taken to be given justice in the Hereafter. In fact since we are the Creation – God has total rights over us and if so chooses to burn us for an eternity – not only is it His Right to do so rationally speaking, but logically if God Exists – who is going to stop God? And there is no power except what God has Himself ordained or bestowed in others.
Is this a loophole? Not really – but one man’s loophole is another man’s reason.
The question of significance with respect to the Universe, the question itself limits the universe to physical entities. However, theologically each human is a Cosmos. God does not spend time – God is Manfiest. Time itself is subject to God, like we are subject to time. The notion of personifying ourselves as God is absurd.
God gave us brains that is true, but He also gave us hearts to think in a different way. That was cannot be fathomed in the mind can be so in the heart. We just need to seek Him earnestly and sincerely.
Is this a loophole? Not really – but one man’s loophole is another man’s reason.
Think and reflect not about His existence but at the expectations from us, as humans are they reasonable?
The fact of Creation is that it is inherent to the Praise of God. It cannot escape its own need for its Creator. When we are informed of worshipping Him it is out of letting us know how we can be at balance. It is not out of a sense of God’s desire for worship. Shirk/denial/atheism is a huge sin which deserves eternal torment, because that is the consequence of those actions hard coded into the fabric of Reality. It is not up for debate, but it has its reasons. The greatest lie is told about the Greatest of Beings not being. So proportionate is the claim to Who that claim is about. Yes, you guessed it - WE benefit from worshiping Him. And if this is not sufficient to undertake the act to benefit ourselves then for what purpose is the protest if by definition it will not benefit us to do so?
At least from a utilitarian point of view the worship of God benefits us, but we do not want that? So who are we protesting against? We think it may be with others who tell us otherwise, but really we are suffering a loss by this protest.
I don’t have an issue of having the entire basis of the belief system questioned as long as it is not done in public because it sways minds who are not versed in such matters and can cause animosity from them too and as long as alternative ideas that equal or better the ones being presented are offered as well.
Is this a loophole? Not really – but one man’s loophole is another man’s reason.
Tl;dr anyone?
Re: Loopholes in Religion
Best way to cover loopholes is with long posts.
Confoocius